2009 End Of Year Review

It's that time of year again where I revisit everything musical from 2009 and point my thumbs up or down. Here is my judgement on what was hot and what was not:

TOP TEN ALBUMS

1. Lungs - FLORENCE AND THE MACHINE
You might think this is a surprising choice, but I was really impressed by the ambition and energy of Lungs with its piano, strings, harps, handclaps and massive drums, and the way Welch’s voice jumps seamlessly from a sultry whisper to an awesome, lung-busting chorus and back again. Rabbit Heart (Raise it Up), is the best example of her stunning vocal. Her delivery at the crescendo of this unapologetically grand pop anthem doesn’t so much ask for your attention as pick you up and fling you across the room. This album’s inventive juxtaposition of dark, gothic lyrics and rousing tunes blows away any burden of expectation with a flourish.

2. Em Are - I JEFFREY LEWIS
It doesn't lose anything from being more polished than his ramshackle early efforts, and his storytelling is still up there with the best.

3. Conditions - THE TEMPER TRAP
Considering how hard it was going to be to match their mesmeric live show, this debut is great, and filled with anthemic tunes.

4. The First Dance - BRIDEZILLA
The First Dance is an album of intelligence, depth and genuine beauty, and Bridezilla’s ability to create intriguing and unique music to this high standard at such a tender age suggests that they have the wherewithal to go on to be one of Australia’s most cherished musical exports.

5. Dark Days/Light Years - SUPER FURRY ANIMALS
Bouncing between beautiful, melodic pop and delightful insanity, Dark Days/Light Years is SFA’s best record since 2001’s Rings Around The World and is perfectly representative of a prolific body of work that makes them one of the most inventive and intriguing bands that Britain has ever produced.

6. It Walks Like Love - LOENE CARMEN
A truly outstanding record, and Loene Carmen's finest piece of work to date.

7. Waxing Gibbous - MALCOLM MIDDLETON
Paradoxically sad and uplifting, this is an intelligent, fragile and really lovely record that finds beauty in the bleakest places.

8. Dance Mother - TELEPATHE
Because of the avant-garde approach to song structures and sound, initially it all seems a little disorientating but everything soon starts to make sense. Equally atmospheric, serious, intelligent, confusing and challenging, Dance Mother is a visionary and intriguing album, and how often can you say that nowadays?

9. Far - REGINA SPEKTOR
Regina Spektor remains a wonderfully weird treasure, even if her edges seem to be getting smoother.

10. Kings & Queens - JAMIE T
All the fun, madness and Englishness of a night’s binge-drinking. Only with Kings & Queens you don’t suffer a hangover and you want to do the whole thing all over again as soon as you’re finished.


TOP TEN SONGS

1. Sweet Disposition - THE TEMPER TRAP



2. Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up) - FLORENCE AND THE MACHINE



3. Broken Broken Broken Heart - JEFFREY LEWIS



4. Daniel - BAT FOR LASHES



5. The Fear - LILY ALLEN



6. Emily's Heart - JAMIE T



7. And The Boys - ANGUS & JULIA STONE



8. Lying Around - CASSETTE KIDS



9. Ballad Of Fuck All - MALCOLM MIDDLETON



10. Inaugural Trams - SUPER FURRY ANIMALS



TOP TEN ARTISTS OF THE YEAR

1. The Temper Trap
2. Friendly Fires
3. Kitty, Daisy & Lewis
4. Florence and the Machine
5. Jeffrey Lewis
6. Bridezilla
7. The Cribs
8. Kirin J. Callinan
9. Yeah Yeah Yeahs
10. Sarah Blasko


TOP TEN GIGS

1. Kitty, Daisy & Lewis, Manning Bar, Sydney

It’s not an exaggeration to say it was one of the most amazing gigs I've ever seen and to attempt to sum it up with mere words seems strangely futile. Superlatives have yet to be invented for how great this was, but the guy in front of me said it succinctly enough in a text message that he sent mid-gig. It simply read: “This is the coolest thing I have ever seen.”

1. (Joint first place because I couldn't decide between the two), Camille, Sydney Recital Hall
The crowd, who started the night reserved and reluctant to embrace the singalongs, demanded three encores, which included Ta Douleur and a cover of Yes We Can Can. I'd be happy if Camille was still encoring now, as the experimental 90-minute show was moving, funny, intriguing, mesmerising and a triumph for innovation and vivid imagination. Absolutely mind-blowing.

3. Jeffrey Lewis, La Maronquinerie, Paris
Not only can he pen evocative lines, but he knows exactly how to put on a live show. The gig had pensive moments, laugh-out-loud humour and sweat-drenched punk magnificence.

4. Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, Latitude Festival
It's safe to say he blew every other performance at Latitude 2009 out of the water. The sound that emanated from the stage from the first moment to the last was an absolute aural attack

5. Kimya Dawson, Komedia, Brighton
Typical of Kimya, she played until the venue basically kicked her off stage long after the curfew had passed.
6. The Streets, The Forum, Entertainment Quarter, Sydney
Regardless of the general lack of diversity or of how relevant The Streets remain in 2009, the night was really all about Skinner’s interaction with the crowd. He made the gig fun. Proper fun.

7. Jamie T, The Metro, Sydney
If You Got The Money almost ripped the roof off and every word of Sheila was roared back at the stage. By the evening’s finale, Sticks ‘n’ Stones, the crowd was going absolutely mental.

8. Bridezilla, The Hopetoun, Sydney
It seemed obvious to everyone in attendance that Bridezilla's time is almost here.

9. The Temper Trap, Magnet, Berlin
A typically tighter-than-a-duck's-bumhole performance.

10. The Pretenders, Latitude Festival
Chrissie Hynde owned the entire field. I'll Stand By You and Bob Dylan's Forever Young were particularly memorable.


TOP FIVE PODCASTS
1. The Ricky Gervais Audiobooks
2. The Adam and Joe Podcast
3. Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo’s Film Review Podcast
4. The Guardian Football Weekly
5. The Jon Richardson Podcast


TOP TEN FILMS

1. Anvil! The Story Of Anvil

As well as being laugh-out-loud funny, this film made me cry more than once and was as touching a love story (obviously in a slightly unconventional sense) as I've ever seen.

2. Let The Right One In
A beautiful and fragile story that raised the bar for vampire movies.

3. Moon
It drew an extraordinary performance from Sam Rockwell and dealt with its themes of mortality and false reality really intelligently and subtly.

4. District 9
For a political (its message is incredibly thinly-veiled) sci-fi thriller with a brain in its head, then District 9 takes some beating. Funny, thought-provoking and with audience loyalties constantly shifting, this film had me gawping at the screen in wonder.

5. Paranormal Activity
Unbearably tense throughout and clever in its use of normality to produce well-contextualised fear.

6. Where The Wild Things Are
I don't think it could have evoked children's excitement, imagination, confusion and fear any better.

7. Zombieland
In the vein of Shaun of The Dead, Zombieland is a genuinely funny movie, made with a love for the genre that ensures it never becomes a pastiche. Real fun stuff and one of the surprise hits of the year.

8. Gran Torino
Clint Eastwood's film-making continues to be intelligent and methodical.

9. Star Trek
Cracking sci-fi action which won me over even though I grew up very much on the Star Wars side of the fence.

10. Of Time And The City
Marvellous documentary about growing up in Liverpool.


THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES AWARD (MOST OVER-HYPED)
Lady GaGa. Not fit to lace Madonna's corset.


QUOTE OF THE YEAR
“To those who did not believe in us - and ladies forgive me - they can suck it and keep on sucking it.” Diego Maradona isn’t especially magnanimous towards his critics after Argentina eventually scraped through to the world cup finals.


PREDICTION FOR 2010
Angus & Julia Stone's new album to be universally adored.


HIGHLIGHT(S) OF THE YEAR
I thought that singing an acoustic version of Coolio’s Gangsta’s Paradise onstage at The Latitude Festival with The Late Greats was pretty much the highlight of my entire life until, just ten days from the end of the year, I got to hang out with Superhans from Peep Show at a friend's birthday party. Best night ever.

Laura Imbruglia at Spectrum, Sydney

LAURA IMBRUGLIA
THE LAURELS
WIFEY
Spectrum, 19/12/09

Sporting a high beard ratio, Wifey opened things up with grown-up yet still perky indie-pop, which included bits of melodica, the occasional trumpet and some pleasingly dour between-song banter.

The Laurels rarely fail to impress and tonight’s show offered a typically awesome barrage of psychedelic/shoegazey noise. From a stage littered with pedals, the sound really was massive and - importantly - within the all-out sonic attack were some killer songs, as two vocalists shared lead duties. Outstanding stuff.

It’s been a quiet year for Laura Imbruglia, gig wise, as she has been busy putting together her second album, The Lighter Side Of…, which is due for release in February. In fact, this was her only headline outing of 2009, so she made the most of it by inviting a host of special guests to join her in showcasing plenty of new material.

Backed by a band featuring Ben James from Talons on drums and long-time bass player Stiff, and alternating between electric and acoustic guitar, she opened with new song Pauly before Surly was followed by another newie, the country-tinged and wonderfully-titled You’re a Parasitic Germ. Joined by Sarah Kelly from theredsunband, she showed a new dimension to her songwriting with the delicate Don’t, a stripped-back number with just one guitar and soft two female vocals.
The special guests continued to punctuate the set; Rosa Agostino, aka Red Ghost, strapped on a guitar for a jaunty version of Loretta Lynn’s Fist City, which was dedicated to Tiger Woods’ wife, Youth Group’s Cameron Emerson-Elliott played guitar on current single When it All Falls Apart (And it Will) and the rest of Talons turned up for a mental and utterly brilliant cover of Salt N Pepa’s Shoop.

As well as her growingly diverse sound - she is equally happy rocking the hell out as she is in country/indie territory - the really appealing thing about Laura Imbruglia is her ability to tell a story. Far from being a series of cheap gags, the delightfully comic lines she delivers work so well because they are contextualised within honest tales that are often desperately sad and self-deprecating. Tonight proved she is an absolute gem of a songwriter, and, judging by the depth and quality of her new songs, the upcoming album is something to really look forward to.

The Vivian Girls - Everything Goes Wrong

Having recorded their eponymous debut album in just three days, Vivian Girls really took their time over their follow-up effort. Everything Goes Wrong took a massive six days to complete. That’s almost a whole week.

Their keenness to expedite the studio process (many of the songs were recorded in a single take) means this Brooklyn trio’s sound is unsurprisingly lo-fi. It certainly has its foot in the punk music camp - the clatter of rudimentary guitar, bass and drums with occasionally inaudible lyrics - but punk is only one of the influences here. If it all seems a little inaccessible at first, after a few listens some really rather lovely ditties shine through the abrasive exterior. Can't Get Over You, for instance, has - buried within some Jesus and Mary Chain fuzziness and some cool surf-guitars - harmonies that point in the direction of the Phil Spector Motown girl groups. It sounds like The Ronnettes crashing their car into L7, in a good way.

The lyrics are always simple, often with the same few lines repeated over. Despite this, the themes of doomed love and yearning are clearly defined, and are summed up by shoegazey album-closer, Before I Start To Cry, which is a downbeat yet beautiful way to end the record, with vocalist-guitarist Cassie Ramone singing in a suitably flat tone: “Just turn around and say goodbye, before I start to cry.”

Ultimately, the fact that Everything Goes Wrong is so raw means that the essence of their live shows is successfully transferred onto CD, which is not an easy thing to achieve.

Stereophonics - Keep Calm and Carry On

When Stereophonics first burst onto the scene over a decade ago, they were considered a really exciting new prospect due to their excellent suburban stories, which were delivered with verve, feeling and that amazing growl of vocalist Kelly Jones. Such vigour quickly dissipated though and, since then, occasional glimpses of that early promise have been drowned in a sea of pub-rock mediocrity; solid, unchallenging songs with clichéd lyrics and choruses that your older brother loves to sing along to. Still, their albums have continued to sell by the truckload, so it’s no surprise that the tried-and-tested Stereophonics formula is largely apparent on their seventh studio album.

Because the Welsh quartet aren’t trying to reinvent the wheel here, it’s no surprise that Keep Calm… isn’t going to change anyone’s life. On the occasions they reveal that the fire is still in their bellies, like in the adrenaline-fuelled Trouble, and that there is a narrative to their songs, like on the poppy Innocent, they can still be rather engaging, but all too often they veer towards the safety of the middle of the road. Songs like Could You Be The One? are sentimental claptrap, with Jones really overdoing the gravelled gargle that his once amazing voice has evolved into. The age-old Stereophonics problem is that, for every Dakota, there will always be a handful of dirge of the Mr Writer variety, and, frustratingly, Keep Calm… is no different.

Without wishing to make the previous two paragraphs seem superfluous, this album can be reviewed succinctly enough by simply saying that it is just another Stereophonics record, nothing more, nothing less.

Kitty, Daisy & Lewis at Manning Bar, Sydney

KITTY, DAISY & LEWIS
DAN KELLY
Manning Bar
10/12/09

Melbourne singer/songwriter Dan Kelly was his usual affable self as he served up some oldies and some newies. Even though his performance felt a little pedestrian, his often fantastical storytelling was, as always, appealing enough.

Kitty Daisy & Lewis - a brother and two sisters from London aged between 16 and 21 - have been pretty much universally lauded since they released their eponymous debut album over a year ago, so their first ever visit to Sydney was as welcome as it was overdue. Dressed straight out of the fifties and - cute alert - backed by their parents on guitar and double bass, the trio ventured on a joyous romp through rock ‘n’ roll, hillbilly swing, country and blues. Old classics like Johnny Horton’s Mean Son of a Gun and original compositions such as Buggin’ Blues were delivered with oodles of charm and an infectious joie-de-vivre that had the audience singing, dancing, clapping and, most importantly, smiling throughout.

It soon became abundantly clear why Kitty, Daisy & Lewis have turned so many heads. It’s not because of their age or the intriguingly incongruous anachronism of their music, but simply because they are absolutely fantastic at what they do. These guys can play, and not just one instrument either; they spent the entire gig switching duties. Take Kitty for example. As well as frequently performing lead vocals, she played guitar, harmonica, drums, ukelele and trombone. Not bad for a sixteen-year-old. Ice-cool Lewis sang, played guitar, drums, lapsteel, banjo and keys, while Daisy - a little fireball of energy - was on drums, xylophone, accordion, keys and vocals, most notably on the brilliant I Got My Mojo Working.

Their mastery of so many instruments was breathtaking and their hour-long set (which included a cameo from legendary Jamaican trumpeter, Eddie ‘Tan Tan’ Thornton) was mesmerising - almost too much to take in at times. It’s not an exaggeration to say it was one of the most amazing gigs this reviewer has ever seen and to attempt to sum it up with mere words seems strangely futile. Superlatives have yet to be invented for how great this was, but the guy in front of me said it succinctly enough in a text message that he sent mid-gig. It simply read: “This is the coolest thing I have ever seen.”

Here is a short clip of the awesomeness:

Loene Carmen - It Walks Like Love

LOENE CARMEN
IT WALKS LIKE LOVE

Australian singer/songwriter Loene Carmen's fourth album hits the stores this month. While it was recorded in Sydney under the watchful eye of producer Burke Reid (The Drones, Jack Ladder, Mess Hall), it sounds - as with her previous offering - like a slice of genuine Americana.

The first single to be plucked from it, garage-soul duet Oh Apollo!, is a playful paean to New York's Apollo Theatre and perhaps a nod to Carmen's admiration of the collaborations between Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan, with her breathy vocal juxtaposed by the deep grumble of Mess Hall's Jed Kurzel.

Plenty of other familiar characters turn up, including members of Holy Soul and The Scare. Tex Perkins also lends his voice, while Carmen also employed the talent that lies within her own family, with father Peter Head on piano and Bridezilla's Holiday Sidewinder (Carmen's fittingly talented daughter) adding some delicious vocals.

The frighteningly catchy chorus of Mimic The Rain sees Carmen at her poppiest. "If you want your garden to grow/You've got to mimic the rain," she tells us. By the second time you hear it, you'll be singing along as if you'd known it your whole life. You'd think such a delightful slice of pop would be the highlight of the record, but even better is to come with the thoughtful Gauloises Blue. As the song approaches its climax, rather than hollering her lungs out as many artists may have done, Carmen's voice barely raises above a gasped whisper. Then ooh and aahs accompany frenzied guitars and delicate piano to bring the song to a dizzying finish.

Sultry vocals and intelligent lyrics continue to intertwine with raw guitars throughout the ten tracks, and the quality never dips, even for the slightest second. It Walks Like Love is a truly outstanding record and, with it, Loene Carmen has not only created her finest piece of work to date, but also one of the albums of the year.

Cymbals Eat Guitars - Why There Are Mountains

New York’s Cymbals Eat Guitars took their name from a Lou Reed quote and, judging by the first couple of minutes of opening track ...And the Hazy Sea, would appear to have taken their sound from Pavement. However, just when you’d expect this nicely angular indie affair to wind down at the three-and-a-half minute mark, it evolves into a huge Arcade Fire-style barrage of sound. At over six minutes, it’s an ambitious and interesting start and is indicative of the genuinely unpredictable arrangements throughout. What starts in one camp might very well end up somewhere completely different. For instance, Indiana segues from shoegazing atmospherics into perky indie-pop with pianos and horns.

In an age when gratification needs to be immediate, Why There Are Mountains is something of a rarity, as it is the very definition of a grower. Because it is crammed so full of ideas and because it sprawls in so many directions, anyone looking for instant accessibility might struggle. But to give this album time is to discover something that manages to be ambitiously crafted without feeling self-indulgent or pompous. It is also reminiscent of its influences (Pavement, Built To Spill, Modest Mouse) without sounding too derivative. And something so epic has no right to sound this visceral and raw.

In the old-fashioned spirit of a long-player being a body of work that takes time and effort to fully appreciate, Why There Are Mountains is a fine record that gets better with every listen. The fact that it is their debut album makes it all the more impressive.